While growing tech companies have certainly seen their fair share of struggles in the past few months, they aren’t floundering — they're evolving. Venture capital funding is less plentiful and new business is harder to secure, but many companies have found ways to weather the storm and emerge stronger than ever.
Healthtech companies Apploi and Ascendco offer examples of how to stand out in a fluctuating tech landscape. Apploi’s chief people officer explained that, when it comes to recruiting, focusing on communicating the healthcare industry’s need for its solutions is key. On the other side of the coin, Ascendco’s CEO and CTO emphasized that communicating stability to customers is all about proving reliability, both through data and the human touch.
Continue reading to learn more about what stability looks like at Apploi and Ascendco — and how they’re communicating resilience to customers and tech talent.
Healthcare companies use Apploi’s software to manage their recruiting and hiring processes as well as to schedule and pay staff.
What does stability look like at Apploi?
As the economy has shifted, the tech industry has seen a lot of volatility around people operations. After years of scaling quickly and adding new roles, companies are now being forced to reduce headcount and recover money. Apploi has taken a different approach to scaling and growing. Our company standard is to be slow to hire and quick to promote. This allows us to be extremely confident when we do bring on a new role, ensure we have enough budget to invest in our current employees and preserve our company culture by minimizing stress and disruption for our team.
How is Apploi communicating stability to jobseekers through its employer brand?
Everyone needs healthcare at some point in their lives, which makes it a relatively secure industry. On top of that, healthcare’s hiring crisis, which we aim to address, has been consistent for years. Given all this, the healthcare industry’s need for innovative hiring solutions is essentially limitless. When talking with jobseekers, we explain our strategic decision to focus on serving healthcare and share how our workforce management tools are uniquely suited to solve our customers’ very real and dire needs.
When things get tough, what advice do you have for other business leaders?
Open, clear communication is essential. It’s not uncommon for leaders across industries to keep hard decisions — like scaling back their workforce — close to the chest. However, a lack of communication can cause more stress and, ultimately, a breakdown of trust in leadership. Leaders should always take the time to explain hard decisions in a way that makes employees feel secure. If you don’t, employees may make up their own narrative, which could result in even more issues down the road.
Leaders should always take the time to explain hard decisions in a way that makes employees feel secure.
Ascendco is a healthtech company whose software is used by hospitals to bring their surgical device management process into the digital age.
What does Stability look like at Ascendco?
Brian Reed, CEO: We invest in our clients by giving them industry experts to work within our client success team along with continuously communicating with them to continue to grow long-lasting relationships and success. Our mission is what drives us. We call ourselves “ascenders,” and our top priority is delivering innovative and simplified solutions to hospital professionals. We all share that same vision and mindset, which helps us get out of bed each morning and do the work we do.
Welsh Harris, CTO: Stability comes in many shapes and sizes. From client stability to product stability, we work collectively as a team to ensure that we are generating success not only for Ascendco but for our clients and the patients they treat on a daily basis. Our teamwork and singular vision help create the stability you see today.
How is Ascendco communicating stability to customers through its employer brand?
Reed: Communicating our success through evidence-based results helps create a story for our clients and network about how reliable we are. Ascendco is devoted to creating a product ready to change the healthcare industry, and we want to work with our clients throughout this journey.
Communicating our success through evidence-based results helps create a story for our clients and network about how reliable we are.
Harris: We make the time to assist our clients to ensure they are properly equipped with the tools to succeed. Once our clients invest in us, we invest in them. We continuously adapt and enhance our products to ensure they are aligned with current market offerings while also introducing new products to the market.
When things get tough, what advice do you have for other business leaders?
Reed: As a small company, we understand things get thrown our way nonstop, and we take the time to fully understand and plan out comprehensive business decisions. We understand, collaborate and then plan, and we don’t shy away from challenges. Rather, we conquer them and deliver on client and company success. Delivering solutions and resources to our clients that help them provide optimal patient care reminds us of why we do the work we do every day, no matter the obstacles we face. Embracing the grind and having a hard-working mentality is the first step in overcoming major hurdles.
